


The Moon Inside the Met

by cliffsofmemory



Category: Foundation - Isaac Asimov, Robot Series - Isaac Asimov
Genre: Fashion & Couture, Gen, Met Gala 2016, SPOILERS for Prelude to Foundation, The Moon - Freeform, aesthetic, alcohol mention, welcome to sentimental hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6735952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cliffsofmemory/pseuds/cliffsofmemory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Prelude to Foundation!</p><p>Daneel has always had an eye for fashion. Dors allowing him to design her a dress leads to one of the most perfect spectacles of the year.</p><p>Inspired by the Met Gala 2016 and two dresses in particular:<br/>Nicole Kidman's moon-and-stars gown<br/>and Claire Danes' luminescent, geometric stunner.<br/>and a prompt by androidprincess on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moon Inside the Met

There is no music when Dors steps out of the car into daylight. Only rushing voices, laughter, and glassware glittering everywhere. The party has been going for an hour, and daylight is beginning to fade. Still, the few fashion reporters who haven’t moved inside for the mingling shots all call for her to pose for them. She holds out her hand to Arnie, the research student who won the other half of Streeling’s raffled pair of tickets. Arnie’s skirt, studded with red flowers and purple teardrops, seems more appropriate for a museum of art, Dors assumes. They link arms and wave at the reporters. She whips the cape a little. She’d never admit to Daneel, but the cape makes her feel safe. Even as flimsy as it is.

Inside, lights are even brighter than the early evening outside, and she finds herself dazzled by jewels, rhinestones, plastic, and more light glinting from every champagne flute.

“Professor, you won’t begrudge me a little open bar, will you?” Arnie’s grin is so earnest. Dors rolls her eyes.

“Just because I’m abstaining, I’m not going to keep you in check all night. Go meet an heiress - or an artist,” she prods, and gives Arnie a little wave. She watches the flowers depart, and laps the room a few times. As she circulates, she hears whispers fade behind her, comet trails.

“Who’s wearing the glitter dress?”  
“What are the drawings on it? Are those asteroids?”  
“They’re moons. What is she, a planet?”  
“Too bad black is so over this year.”

Only one or two people stop her to network, ask about what she does, if she’s brought a plus one, and Dors finds the interest dwindling with every instance of “history” she mentions. Potential conversation partners examine the dress as it sparkles, then glance away. She finally sees Hummin in her path, stepping between two converging hors d’oeuvres trays in a quick dart. He circles around alongside Dors. Not quite facing her. 

“What style.” He lets his eyes drop from the crescents on her shoulder to the shaded orbs at the train.

“The two and a half bloggers still outside were impressed.”

“Technological jewelry is more the rage this year, it seems. I appreciate your indulging my aesthetic choice.” His own pale green outfit, all one piece and slim from neck to ankles but for its strangely high and puffed collar, may be one of the simplest designs in the room.

“Daneel, I’m only wearing it because it made you sentimental.” She looks at him full on, a hand on her hip. “Do I do it justice?”

“You are wearing it perfectly. I think the environment simply doesn’t quite suit it.”

“Is it going to distract you from work?” She curls the cape a little, crumpling its moons into nothing.

He looks up, finally. “The material expected of me tonight is simpler than the usual politics. But I did hear--”

“Hummin! What are you doing at a pink tie event like this?” A person wearing nothing but dazzling gold spikes from shoulders to thighs dances up alongside them both. Hummin smiles rather easily, thinks Dors, as she watches him turn to carefully maneuver an arm among the spikes for a shoulder hug.

“Dors, this is my colleague, Kash.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Dors offers, and shakes hands. “Are your spikes a danger?”

“Not at all,” Kash says, and dances a little. The gold spikes rustle. “Papier-mâché.”

“Kash taught me quite a few tricks about design. The real fashion columnist, you know.” Hummin nods at Dors. “I’m only here to spy for big game.”

“Yes, Hummin eyes the diplomats and I recognize the designers. Regarding which... your dress is an original?”

Dors shrugs, in a careful imitation of coyness, and watches Hummin slip off into the crowd again with only an apologetic wave.

The night goes on for a little while, and some special guests are announced, and a few people’s specially crafted outfits are applauded. Arnie low-fives the professor as she makes her way out with a blushing dance partner painted half in silver, half in periwinkle. Dors dances a little, too, practicing the art of mingling in and out of gaps that open between bodies, sliding through pathways and letting the cape with its many moons follow in her wake, casting its own shadows. No one notices the fashion anymore. The lights shine.

And Chetter Hummin nurses a clear drink - is it only water? And chats with the security guard and what may be a bored museum intern along the far corner wall. Around midnight, with a small smile on his face, he asks them both, “which outfit is your favorite?” and as they look around, he leans just a little on the wall. His back presses, surely by chance, against a few of the light switches in the room - and most of the hall turns to night. Or perhaps, more accurately, twilight: only the chandeliers and shards of luminescent crystal along the buffet tables remain, leaving a hazy, bluish dimness - and a strange, pearly glow in the center of the room.

Sharp screams. A few laughs. And then, slowly, gathering quiet, starting near the center of the room and fading the cries into nothing. In the center of the silence, silhouetting a ring of dark bodies, a dress and cape glow. Dors, with her halo of short, loose, red-gold curls slowly turns, noticing for the first time the light reflecting - no, emanating - from her own dress and cape. All her moons and stars are glowing. Tiny receptors in the stitching, she guesses. The dense clusters of star-studs at the shoulders light her face; the large, round moons at the hem shine a small pool of paleness around her. She spins again, slowly, expands the cape. Guests around her gasp.

As people think to pull out their cameras, Dors stops and peers across the room at Hummin, who has already apologized to the security guard and kept her talking enough to keep the lights off. His face is dark, but she knows his eyes are sharp on her. She’s sure he sees her begin to smile.

Someone, perhaps Kash, asks, “Who are you wearing, dear? Who designed this stunner?” Others echo the question.

She turns back to the onlookers, smirks the smallest of smirks, hand moving to her hip. “It’s an Eto Demerzel.”

The folks around snort, laugh. They take more photos. They pose with her.

Across the room, Daneel moves a little closer to see the full moons at the hem of the dress again. Glowing now, they remind him suddenly of Earth's moon in a way they hadn’t when he sewed the tiny LEDs into the fabric. He stares. Wonders why he never actually noticed the moon from Earth, even from Spacetown. Wonders why its replicas, tiny here, never in any case quite representative of a place he has lived, make him think: _home_. He lets them shine and the voices murmur, all full of awe, as Dors indulges them all and slowly begins to spin one more time. His two creations blur together, both glowing, with a circle of humans in orbit.

**Author's Note:**

> The moon-and-stars dress, designed by Alexander McQueen:  
> http://inquisitiveg.tumblr.com/post/143764014722/nicole-kidman-attends-the-manus-x-machina-fashion
> 
> The glowing dress, designed by Zac Posen:  
> http://olyaxox.tumblr.com/post/143766311545/claire-danes-wearing-zac-posen
> 
>  
> 
> I am a sap and this got super sentimental by the end. Enjoy, welcome to hell as usual


End file.
